It is claimed by a Pakistani. If evidence was weak, how was Kasab convicted and hanged?
Almost all Indian and western media keep mentioning the $10 million bounty on Hafiz Saeed’s head announced by the US, without even hinting that Secretary Clinton actually announced $10 million as a reward to anyone providing information that can link Hafiz Saeed with Mumbai terrorism. Her actual words, while speaking in New Delhi were:
“As part of our “Rewards for Justice” program, we have offered a $ 10 million reward that could lead to the arrest or conviction of Hafiz Saeed in those attacks. Our “Rewards for Justice” offer demonstrates our seriousness in obtaining additional information that could withstand judicial scrutiny at least to arrest or conviction and brings the perpetrators and planners of the Mumbai attacks to justice.”(Clinton, New Delhi, April 3 2012)
Clinton’s initiative was clearly yet another US concession to India which uses its burgeoning relations with America essentially to constrain and contain Pakistan, but US Media, brewing on their own and Indian narratives, were shocked; questions were raised in state department briefing next day, April 4, that what have been talking all these years, if we did not have any evidence. Mark Toner, state department spokesman, clarified the next day in these words:
“Just to clarify, the $10 million is for information that – not about his location, but information that leads to an arrest or conviction. And trdhis is information that could withstand judicial scrutiny, so I think what’s important here is we’re not seeking this guy’s location. We all know where he is. Every journalist in Pakistan and in the region knows how to find him. But we’re looking for information that can be usable to convict him in a court of law..”
Much has been written in newspapers, magazines, online publications, Facebook and Twitter and much has been debated by think tanks and diplomats behind the scenes and by Bollywood through celluloid products but what evidence was exactly offered by the Indian government, in Mumbai Police Case No. 175 of 2009, that linked Hafiz Saeed (Accused No.1 of 35 accused) with the terror attacks in Mumbai on 26 Nov 2008? This question must possess journalists, columnists, authors and researchers but also diplomats, lawyers and intelligent citizens. So what is this evidence?
Indian Judge examining the maps and the evidence concluded that Mumbai police had made a bogus case because the quality of information (maps on record by the prosecution) Fahim Ansari allegedly provided or could provide was far inferior than what was easily available from Google and the witness against them was not reliable.
The prosecution challenged trial court decision all the way till Indian supreme court and their case was rejected by courts at all levels. Finally, Fahim was acquitted from the Indian Supreme court in 2013. All this has been reported by Indian media and anyone can access this. Sabeeh-ud-Din case, linked with Fahim Ansari, followed a similar trajectory.
Cables of Ambassador Anne Patterson
If Wikileaks had leaked, T.C.A Raghavan’s cable of Aug 22, 2008, then it also leaked Ambassador. Anne Patterson’s cable of April 2009 to her principals in Washington. Patterson, then Washington’s point person in Islamabad, was one of the senior-most US diplomats that earned the respect of her interlocutors wherever she worked.
I recently met ex-President, Asif Ali Zardari and as we talked casually about international relations, I was struck by the level of respect he showed for Anne Patterson and her integrity. Patterson in her cable No. 206598, of 12 May 2009, (SUBJECT: MUMBAI PROSECUTION UPDATE: PAKISTAN LACKS EVIDENCE TO CONVICT TOP SUSPECTS) informed Washington that India (GOI, as she refers in her cable) has failed to provide any certified substantive evidence against the accused in Pakistan.
She demands that Washington must persuade India to come forth with more substantive evidence otherwise the case in Pakistani courts will soon collapse; following is an exact excerpt from the summary of this cable:
“While the FIA and prosecutors have been able to use the repeated extensions to gather more evidence, time is running out, and the prosecution does not/not have enough evidence to convict the top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) suspects, Lakhvi, Zarar Shah, and al Qama. If the FIA does not receive the necessary third-country evidence from the GOI (or the FBI after GOI approval), these three suspects will likely be acquitted and released. Repeated USG interventions at several levels with the GOI have not yielded any certified evidence being passed to the GOP. If the top LeT terrorists are released, India will certainly accuse Pakistan of a lack of good faith in prosecuting and of directly sponsoring terrorism against India..”
Ambassador Patterson’s cable in para 4 also mentions that, “FIA does not/not have enough independent evidence to successfully prosecute the senior LeT leaders, Lakhvi, Shah, and al Qama. Unfortunately, due to political pressure, the FIA was put in the position of arresting and charging the three individuals before it had conducted a complete investigation or collected the proper evidence..”
As mentioned earlier, both Fahim Ansari and Sabeeh-ud-Din (66% of the evidence Indians relied upon against accused in Pakistan) were soon acquitted by Indian courts of all charges related to Mumbai terrorism. Ajmal Kasab recanted his confession later and took the stand that confession was extracted from him under duress.
This makes his confessional statement legally inadmissible to be used against others he had earlier accused. However, problems with Indian position on Ajmal Kasab do not end there. While Pakistani government never sought consular access for Kasab, Pakistani investigators did.
Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and police officers who were working to piece the story together for the trial of accused in Pakistan wanted to cross-examine Kasab on his confessional statement. They were repeatedly denied by Indian authorities.
The same happened to the lawyers of the defendants; they under law had the right to cross-examine the person whose statements and evidence was being used to frame their clients. However, after several months of wrangling, and frustrating debate, all what they could get was access to the Mumbai police officers who had recorded Ajmal Kasab’s statement.
As soon as name Ajmal Kasab had appeared on horizon, immediately in the aftermath of Mumbai terrorism, in December 2008, there were murmurs in Islamabad that Ajmal Kasab might be an agent of LeT or even some Pakistani agency but he was someone who had entered India from Nepal, 2-3 years ago and was considered lost; he was believed to be in Indian custody – just like Col. Habib who recently disappeared from Nepal (after RAW Officer Kulbhashan’s arrest in Pakistan) and is believed to be in possession of Indian external agency.
These arguments, from hushed hushed discussions in drawing rooms, soon reached television programs and such programs do exist on YouTube – and have been written about in major papers. When Kasab’s confessional video, from a hospital bed, appeared on Indian TV and on YouTube, Pakistanis were struck by the fact that he spoke Urdu/Hindi in a local (Marathi) accent, and did not sound like a young Punjabi lad from Pakistan.
Most Indians easily ignored this aspect, westerners off course had no capacity to pick up such subtle shades of ethnicity and dialects, but Punjabi Pakistanis, native to Punjabi street, were intrigued that this young man, from dusty Farid kot, not formally educated, does not exhibit the usual rough Punjabi accent, of how you utter words and syllables, that easily creeps into the Urdu expressions of all less educated Punjabis.
In 1992, the then Indian PM, Narasimha Rao, had ordered Indian intelligence, in what has been described as “Rao Doctrine” to initiate a strategy of isolating Pakistan by getting it declared as a “terrorist state”. Al Faran terror group, that abducted western tourists and beheaded some, appeared soon afterwards. Pakistanis and their jihadi assets in Kashmir had immediately cried that “Al Faran” appears to be an Indian ploy.
Link is in post number 2.
Kasab speaks with an indian accent, RAO doctrine should answer your question regarding why he was convicted.
indias own courts and US ambassador Anne Patterson have confirmed that the proof is not sufficient for a conviction.
..
